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Updated December 15th, 2020 at 10:54 IST

'Great relief': Canada administers first COVID-19 vaccines, Trudeau hails 'big step'

A frontline healthcare worker and an elderly nurse from the home care in Canada were among the first to get vaccinated in a mass campaign.

Reported by: Zaini Majeed
canada
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Canada on December 14 inoculated citizens with Pfizer and BioNtech COVID-19 shots, becoming the third nation in the world to administer vaccines after the UK and the US. A frontline healthcare worker and an elderly nurse from the home care were among the first to get vaccinated in a mass campaign that was aired live on television. In an update shared by Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau, the 89-year-old support worker Gisèle Lévesque, a resident of the Saint-Antoine in Quebec City got a shot at around 11:30 a.m. Canada has planned to distribute at least 30,000 Pfizer-BioNTech batches of shots at 14 key point-of-delivery sites to the priority groups which involve the elderly and vulnerable and the frontline essential workers. Canada will obtain nearly 249,000 doses by the end of December. 

Read: Canada Health Regulators Approve Pfizer-BioNtech's COVID-19 Vaccine

Read: Canada Health Regulator Approves Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine

37 million to be vaccinated

Earlier at a press conference, Trudeau spoke from the front steps of Rideau Cottage saying that he planned to get the majority of Canadians vaccinated against the novel SARS-coV-2 and the timeline that he had set is “optimistic”. “The fact that the doctors highlighted that if all goes according to plan, we should be able to have a majority of Canadians vaccinated by next September, puts us in very good stead,” Trudeau announced. 

Meanwhile, as the doctors and the healthcare workers cheered to the first batch of the vaccine being administered at Toronto's Rekai Centre nursing home, PM Trudeau, who plans to wait for his turn after the population is injecteded, seemingly not in a rush said, that it was a “great relief” to watch and a big step forward in the fight against the virus. “But we’re not out of the woods yet,” the Canadian PM stressed.  While Quebec and Ontario make two states that have witnessed the surge in the COVID-19 cases with more than 85 percent, 13,341 COVID-linked deaths, Federal Minister for public services and procurement, Anita Anand, told a press conference that Canada plans to vaccinate a population of 37 million people, 21 days apart. 

Read: 'Definitely A Treasure': Magazine Due Back In 1975 Finally Returned To Library In Canada

Read: Canada's Concern About well-being Of Indian Farmers Is 'nothing But Hypocrisy': BJP

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Published December 15th, 2020 at 10:56 IST

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